Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, is being lined up to play the role of Gordon Brown in a series of mock debates intended to help David Cameron prepare for his general election television clashes with the prime minister.

As a Scot and a polymath, who is equally at ease on Newsnight and Newsnight Review, Gove is seen as the perfect candidate to assume the role of Brown in what are being dubbed West Wing-style mock debates.

In the hit US television series the fictional US president Jed Bartlet repairs to a North Carolina conference centre, dubbed the Debate Camp, to prepare for his presidential television debate.

Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are planning to follow the example of the Debate Camp and position their leader at a mock podium facing his opponents as part of lengthy preparations for the three televised general election clashes. The only difference will be that Brown, Cameron and the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg will face two opponents.

As Britain's three main parties began their plans for the three television debates, which will be held consecutively on ITV, Sky News and the BBC, the broadcasters were yesterday facing the threat of legal action by the SNP and Plaid Cymru. The two parties, who are in government in Scotland and Wales, rejected an assurance from the BBC that they would be given a chance to respond to the three debates and that they would take part in separate leaders' debates in Scotland and Wales.

Stewart Hosie, the SNP's general election co-ordinator, said his party had been given legal advice that the BBC has breached its obligations to fairness and impartiality. "The BBC is supposed to be Scotland's national broadcaster – not a publicity agent for the three London-based parties – and they have already failed in their duty to their Scottish audience."

The broadcasters and the three main parties are confident that Plaid Cymru and the SNP will not succeed in derailing the debates because they are not standing in all parts of the UK. Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems – or their sister parties in Northern Ireland – will field candidates in all four parts of the UK.

The main parties were focusing on their preparations yesterday. A Tory source said Cameron was confident that he would hold his own after taking his case round Britain in more than 50 of his Cameron Direct meetings. "There will be loads of preparation but David has a great deal of experience in explaining his case to the country," the source said.

The Tories would not be drawn on who would play Clegg. But George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, used to play Tony Blair in his days as political secretary to William Hague. Osborne comes from a similar urban middle-class background and went to a similar London public school as the Lib Dem leader.

Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, advised Brown to focus on detail. "Brown should really pin down Cameron, who's got all this warm cuddly stuff … a clean polite young man you wouldn't mind your daughter bringing home," he told Radio 4's The World at One. "But you've got to pin him down on what he's going to do in a crisis, what does he believe, who's going to bear the cost of getting us out of this huge mountain of debt? If I were Brown I would be incredibly detailed."

The Lib Dems believe the debates could be a "game changer" for a party which is always overshadowed by Labour and the Tories. Party sources are excited that Clegg will be placed on the same footing as Brown and Cameron during four and a half hours of primetime television.

One source said the party would not leave anything to chance as it prepares Clegg for the debates. "We will have mock debates. But it isn't just a case of imitating Gordon Brown and David Cameron. The really important part of the preparation will be highly detailed research into what their answers will be," the source said.

The exact format for the debates have not been finalised. But the three main figures who have led the negotiations – Andy Coulson for the Tories, David Muir for Labour and Jonny Oates for the Lib Dems – are said to have built up trust in their discussions with the broadcasters.